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Straight from Finland, the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra showcases two works by Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair Kaija Saariaho on this series that’s chock full of the music by today’s best composers from all over the world.

Bang on a Can started out in 1987 as a group of free-wheeling composers dedicated to adding a fresh voice to contemporary music. Since then, they’ve started their own summer festival, record label, and their own performing All-Stars group. In March 2010, Bang on a Can All-Stars debuted Louis Andriessen’s multimedia work Life in Milan, and on this concert they give what the composer calls “a kind of contemporary Pictures at an Exhibition” its New York premiere.

The Avanti! Chamber Orchestra travels from its hometown of Helsinki to New York City, beginning its two-night stay at Carnegie Hall with a focus on Finnish composers. This exemplary group sheds a particularly bright spotlight on Carnegie Hall’s composer-in-residence Kaija Saariaho with her 1987 work Nymphéa and the world premiere of a suite from Emilie, her most recent opera.

Even after 30 years, Kronos Quartet continues to electrify us with energetic performances of fascinating new music; a breathtaking success, it’s no wonder that Rolling Stone calls the group “classical music’s Fab Four.” On an evening that features two New York premieres and two world premieres of music by composers from around the world, Kronos Quartet is joined by its original cellist, Joan Jeanrenaud.

Program

American Mavericks concludes with a concert that reflects the range of music that defines the maverick spirit: The human voice stretched to its limit by Meredith Monk; electronic theater music by Morton Subotnik; pulsing music by Steve Reich; and Lukas Foss’s experimentalism grounded in the European tradition.

Listen

Morton Subotnick And The Butterflies Begin to Sing, Part IV "Images Will Descend to the Ground: Truth will remain simple, and gigantic wheels will ride the bitter waves"